Maybe Fairphone introduce unlock by face recognition…
During these pandemic times where we frequently have to cover our face, it would not be a very strategic choice…
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I hope the phone will last longer, then the pandemic time 
Even though I wouldn’t use it at all.
But the fingerprint sensor would be cool.
@Stanzi so the is no difference on the FP4 dose not have one or it’s under the screen and you are not using it - is there?
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Apple made it work with a mask as far as I know. But I hope FP4 won’t use it. Google gave up on face unlock after the Pixel 4 as well. And I don’t see FP develop and improve the technique by themselves. It’s not as advanced in Android as on iOS yet. And they then have to support the technology for 5 years.
I hope it’s underneath the screen. But that would make modularity kinda hard as well I guess. Fingerprint reader malfunctioning? Replace the whole screen module? Just speculating here of course.
I wouldn’t be much surprised if FP is using the dark circle on the camera island at the back of the phone for fingerprint unlock 
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Oh yeah, I forgot about aging…
Aging wouldn’t be a problem. If it works like iOS it will learn your face better with every face unlock. What I mean is that Google’s Pixel 4 will be end-of-life next year. And with that their commitment for face unlock in stock Android. Face unlock is hard to maintain and improve. I base that on the fact how much Google struggles/struggled with it.
@TheDeckie yes there is, because it would very likely still collect my fingerprint even if it’s not using it and I couldn’t cover it with a sticker. Also the notch makes it much more annoying to cover the front camera since you need to very accurately cut a piece of duct tape or it would look very ugly, although covering the camera isn’t as important for me as covering the sensor.
@UPPERCASE I’m hoping for modulatiry here, since then I hopefully could just remove the sensor from the phone entirely.
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No, they didn’t. Only the requester for the unlock PIN comes quicker, when a mask is recognized. Or if you are wearing an Apple watch, which is unlocked, it will unlock the phone too.
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I think collecting biometric data without having this feature activated would be highly criminal. Even though I do not trust Google at all - I wouldn’t assume, they’d do that. Especially with /e/ or liniage OS I would say the sensor won’t work, if the feature is deactivated.
But I get your point, as I would not feel comfortable with face recognition for the very same reason.
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It wouldn’t be the first time these companies would be doing stuff that’s highly criminal. I personally wouldn’t be surprised if all this data would secretly be shared with some US agencies. I’m not saying that it is, just that it might as well be and we don’t know it (yet).
Edit: I use Linux on my laptop and even though there are no Linux drivers for its fingerprint reader - so it’s literally impossible that it works - I still cover it up, just to be extra sure. The is nothing better than physically blocking hardware.
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I think it could become available on /e/ OS one day, too, but not within the next five years or so…
While I am - in a way - totally in agreement, that the best prevention against data collection is physically switching sensors/cameras off, this - just for me - seems to be a bit far fetched.
Regarding the pain it is to register one’s fingerprint with a sensor, I can hardly see any use in collecting random touches of the sensor and making a pattern out of those. Even more so, as there might be lots of people handling the phone. They might be “noticed”, but collected would mean storing them and that should fill up the memory really fast or at least it should be recognizeable, or do I get something wrong there?
So, while I don’t use the fingerprint sensor on the FP3 and did not register my fingerprints, I never thought of covering that sensor.
The camera is a totally different piece of cake of course.
But that’s obviously just my personal opinion.
And regarding the pictures I have my doubts, that there is a fingerprint sensor on the front side. If any, than I would guess it’s on the back next to the two camera lenses.
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Google stores biometric info in their Titan security chip (offline). Which is their secure enclave.
In general I am not a big fan of notches, but maybe I can get used to it.
But I really hope that the notch is not just for the front-facing cam, but for the notification LED, too.
For various reasons I really like notification LEDs and it was one of the major things why I bought the FP3.
Most phones don’t have them nowadays, but luckily there are still some few phones on the market with LEDs.
In my opinion and for my use case, a missing notification LED would be a bummer.
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If you zoom in, lower contrast and raise brightness, you can see three darker lines on the right side of the notch. So there is still hope 
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I think that would rather be the grill for the speaker…
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And/or the proximity sensor and/or ambient light detector 
I don’t think there will be a notification LED. Most smartphones don’t have this feature anymore. Furthermore, if it were to be an OLED screen, then there would be no need for such thing…
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A LED would still save some battery…
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I thought I would miss the LED notification as well. But the always-on display feature on the Pixel 3 is actually really good and doesn’t use much battery. The always-on display is also off when you have it in your pocket or face down on a table. It uses perhaps 1% of battery per hour, when on. Which is only when it’s laying there on the table. Just saying 
Not so sure: if it blinks, I want to turn my screen on to know what it is, whereas if it is directly - even momentarily - displayed, I’d then know if I would want to or not…
And I’m not even talking about the fact it was unavailable for monthes after FP3 launched…
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